Portability

Before you run a backup, consider where you plan to restore the data. For example, if you are restoring data to the same system or to another system (which can be a different model type or have a later software release), use the compressed internal format files that are created by the nzbackup command.

The compressed internal format files are smaller and often load more quickly than text external format files.

When you are transferring data to a new Netezza Performance Server system or when you are restoring row-secure tables, use the nzrestore -globals operation to restore the user, groups, and privileges (that is, the access control and security information) first before you restore the databases and tables. If the security information that is required by a row-secure table is not present on the system, the restore process exits with an error.

If you plan to load the Netezza Performance Server data to a different system (that is, a non-Netezza Performance Server system), the text format external tables are the most portable. Data in text external tables can be read by any product that can read text files, and can be loaded into any database that can read delimited text files.